


'I Don't Care If You're Contagious'

by toxictreasure



Category: Oxventure (Web Series)
Genre: Sick Character, Sickfic, could be read as kinda shippy but that wasnt really the intent?, if it is a ship it's all of the oxventurers in love, pls ask me to tag anything else!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxictreasure/pseuds/toxictreasure
Summary: Corazon is sick and his friends are there to comfort and care for himorthis is a completely self indulgent sickfic with the oxventurers
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	'I Don't Care If You're Contagious'

**Author's Note:**

> i got a cold about two weeks ago and starting writing this cause i felt bad for myself and i love projecting onto my favorite chaotic bisexual pirate. do enjoy!!  
> the title is a pierce the veil songe :D

Corazón was very aware that he was the only human member of their party. He’d been aware of it since they’d decided to all stick together after that business with the spicy rat, and even more so after Egbert joined - he vaguely remembered something about Egbert being cursed to be a dragon man, but he couldn’t really remember the details.

Because of his ‘being-the-only-human’ status, Corazón often thought about what that meant for him. He’d come to terms with the fact that if they weren’t killed by outside sources, he would be the one to die first. Sure, Dob wouldn’t last much longer than him, but with Corazón’s way of life, he thought of reaching 50 as a near-miracle. 

He’d also discovered during their three or four years of adventuring together, that humans were the only ones that tended to get ill. The others had been  _ sick _ in the past, of course, but that was usually seasickness or poison, they never seemed to get a cough, or a runny nose, or get a vomiting bug not caused by the ocean. Hell, Egbert was basically fine just a couple of hours after getting his interesting dragon organs stolen by Liliana. 

Corazón found this very unfair.

Yesterday when the group had been doing a routine dungeon crawl, removing monsters for the nearby town, Corazón had been unusually quiet. Somehow, he’d managed to get a sore throat, and desperately wanted to preserve his voice and not think too hard about the impending sickness. Luckily, nobody questioned it, aside from Merilwen giving him an odd look or two. He’d just secured his hat and soldiered on. 

He’d hoped it was just the result of a hangover, or from the karaoke night they did on the deck of the Joyful Damnation, where he’d sang many songs by the travelling bard group the ‘Backalley Boyeth’. 

However, when he’d woke up the next day with a blocked nose and a cough, he knew that wasn’t the case. His nose and around his eyes felt like they would explode from the pressure that was built up in that area of his face, and the sounds of Dob and Merilwen talking on deck sounded more muffled than usual. 

Corazón licked his lips in an attempt to make them less dry and curled over on his side, pulling his bed covers up to his chin. He was relieved they didn’t have anywhere to be, as he closed his eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep. 

~

“Has one of you done something to annoy Corazón?” Prudence asked, after emerging from her room on the ship. “Usually he’s out here demanding we go into town so he can get more clothes by now.”

Dob looked up from his lute and shrugged. “Egbert mentioned his dad yesterday, maybe it was that?”

Prudence raised an eyebrow. “Nobody’s checked on him?” 

“You know how he feels about us going into his cabin without us being asked.”

Prudence nodded in response, and made her way over to Corazón’s door. As she raised her fist to knock, there was a loud sneeze from the other side of the door. Dob and Merilwen stared at the door, where Prudence was stood with a raised hand. She dropped her hand and turned to face the other two. “I think Corazón is sick.” 

Merilwen frowned, and Dob considered what the tiefling had said. “What should we do?” he plucked a string on his lute. “I don’t think I have any spells that cure ailments. Maybe if we still had some M. Channail’s-“

“No!” Merilwen exclaimed over another sneeze from Corazón’s cabin. “Did you forget that stuff turned people into animals?”

Dob shrugged and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘I don’t see why that would be so bad’.

Prudence rolled her eyes at the half-orc and entered the captain’s cabin. 

Upon entering Corazón’s quarters, it looks like a study that would belong to any rich man. Bookshelves filled to the brim with books, a sturdy oak desk, and half-written letters and pamphlets strewn over the desktop. To Prudence’s surprise, the books didn’t look untouched, in fact, most of them looked very thoroughly read - dog-eared even. In the three years that they’d been travelling together, Prudence couldn’t remember Corazón ever reading a book in their leisure time. She had assumed since he’d learned some magic, he had to have read something, but never did she think he’d read fictional stories and old fables for fun. She wandered over to the desk and picked up one of the letters. It looked like it was addressed to Bismuth, back at the manor at Necropolis-On-Sea. As she placed the letter down, the one that was sat below caught her eye.

It was addressed to Lord Milquetoast. Prudence frowned as she started to read the letter, needing to know whether Corazón’s father had been the first to initiate correspondence. 

She was interrupted in her reading by a spluttering cough coming from the room adjacent to the study. Prudence swiftly dropped the letter and moved to the door that led to Corazón’s bedroom. She paused with her hand on the doorknob.

“Corazón? Are you alright?” Prudence cringed slightly at how worried she sounded. Of course she was concerned about him, but she didn’t need him to know that. 

“Peachy.” Corazón’s voice was scratchy and sounded small. Prudence knew that Corazón would be hating the way he sounded.

“You don’t sound ‘peachy’.” Prudence said as Corazón coughed again. “May I come in?”

There was silence from the other side of the door and Prudence fixed her jewellery while she waited for a response. A moment or two later, Corazón’s voice sounded, “Fine.”

Compared to the study, Corazón’s bedroom was small, holding only a bed, wardrobe, bedside table, and a mirror. The bedside table held an oil lamp, a stack of books, and a box one would assume was full of Corazón’s jewelry. Prudence gave a side-eye to the wardrobe which had clothes practically spilling out of it. Why Corazón insisted he go and buy more clothes almost every week, Prudence would never know.

“Hey, Pru.” Came Corazón’s scratchy voice from his bed. Prudence turned and sighed at the sight of the pirate in bed.

Corazón had propped himself up on his elbows, with his hair loose, hanging down his back. His lips looked dry and he had dark bags under his eyes. The tip and underside of his nose was red from where he’d been rubbing at it. 

Prudence swept over to Corazón, pressing a hand against his forehead. “You look awful, by the way.” 

“Thank you,” Corazón grinned at the tiefling, who stood up straight and crossed her arms as she looked down at him. 

Corazón sneezed.

The force of it pulled him up slightly and forced him back down onto his pillow. He cursed. 

Prudence’s frown softened slightly as she watched Corazón cough into the crook of his elbow. She sat on the edge of his bed, and waited for him to get over the coughing fit.

“Jerky Steve doesn’t have to deal with this.” Corazón muttered bitterly, leaning back on his pillow with a scowl. 

“Is there anything we can do?”

~

“I’m just saying, it  _ was _ a cure-all elixir, even if it did cure-all by turning them into animals.” Dob shrugged, as he and Merilwen made their way to Egbert’s room, next to the gunpowder storage room. 

Merilwen had the idea that the three of them should probably go into the town they were docked at to get some things to help Corazón recover from his illness. One of the first times Corazón had been ill, Merilwen had tried to make a poison antidote for him, not quite understanding what was wrong, which only ended up making him worse. Then Prudence had tried, and that didn’t help either. Egbert and Dob were instantly stopped from trying by Corazón who had holed himself up for a few days before emerging as good as ever. 

Dob ducked under a doorway and then knocked on Egbert’s cabin door. There was a soft ‘oh dear’ from the other side, and then some gusts of breath. Dob and Merilwen exchanged a look. Egbert opened the door a second later with soot on his face and hands.

Dob’s head tilted to the side while Merilwen sighed and placed one hand on her forehead. “Have you been messing with bombs again.”

Egbert gave a guilty grin and nodded. “How can I help?”

“First, you need to stop with the bombs while on the ship-” 

“Prudence thinks Corazón’s sick.” Dob interrupted, causing Merilwen to sigh indignantly. “Sorry.”

The dragonborn rubbed at the soot on his face, just spreading more onto his snout. “So, what are we doing?”

Dob grabbed Egbert by the arm. “We’re going shopping!”

~

Corazón was pretty certain he wouldn’t pass his illness to Prudence, so he let her stay in his room. She sat on his bed with him resting his head in her lap, and she spoke to him about anything that came to her head. 

He’d almost forgotten what it was like to just sit with someone and not have to keep up appearances. Prudence ran her fingers through his hair, and he sighed contentedly. She was saying something about Bearilwen and berries, but Corazón couldn’t focus on what it was she was saying, instead thinking about how nice it was to just be able to not make an effort. He was sneezing and snotty and frankly, feeling like a raging garbage fire, but Prudence didn’t seem to care - just talking to him, and giggling a bit when he sneezed. 

“You should wear your hair down more often, y’know?” Prudence said, running her fingers from his scalp to the end of his hair. 

“If people think I’m handsome with my hair tied back, I think they’d die if they saw it down.” He gave a lopsided smile and Prudence snorted.

“Don’t give yourself too much credit.” She joked, smoothing down Corazón’s hair.

A knock on the door made them both look up. Merilwen’s voice came from the other side.

“Is it okay if I come in?” She asked, and Corazón gave her permission.

The door to the room opened to show the other three Oxventurers stood with smiles on their faces. Prudence tried not to laugh.

“When I said you could come in, I was under the impression it was only Merilwen.” Corazón winced slightly as he sat up and looked to the three standing in the doorway. The side of his face suddenly felt very cold now that it wasn’t in Prudence’s lap. 

Merilwen opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, then shook her head slightly. “We’re going into town, is there anything specific we should get you?”

Corazón coughed into the crook of his elbow, and then licked his lips. “Wine would be good, we don’t have any on the ship, do we?”

“I second that idea.” Prudence grinned.

“Also, soup would be nice.” Corazón thought for a moment. “And a new hat.”

“Do you want me to come with?” Prudence asked, placing a hand on Corazón’s knee.

Merilwen shook her head. “It’d be best for you to stay here. I think we can handle a shopping trip.” She glanced over her shoulder to Egbert and Dob. “I think.”

~

Shortly after Dob, Ebgert, and Merilwen had left Prudence had managed to convince Corazón to go to sleep, with a tankard of ale on his bedside table. After checking on Frisky and The Darkness, who seemed to sense her concern for Corazón much to her dismay, she grabbed a book she had been reading off her own bedside table and made her way back to the captain’s quarters. 

Prudence considered taking up a perch on Corazón’s bed, but looking at his sleeping form all cozied up, she decided against it and sat down on the floor. As she opened her book, she glanced up at the sleeping pirate and smiled. He looked peaceful. 

She got through a total of one page before she heard Corazón again. He coughed a few times and then propped himself up onto his elbows. “Pru? Why are you on the floor?”

She scowled down at the pages of her book. “I just…” She reconsidered what she was going to say. “I didn’t want to sit on your bed and wake you up.” 

She refused to let Corazón know that she didn’t want him to be alone while he was ill. He’d gloat forever. Even now, he had the makings of a sly smile appearing on his face. Prudence suppressed the urge to hiss at him. 

Snapping her book shut, Prudence got to her feet, and smoothed down her robes. She took a seat next to Corazón, swinging her feet up onto the bed. He put his head back on his pillow and curled up a bit beside her, coughing into his hands as he did. 

Prudence opened her book again, patting Corazón’s head softly. “Go back to sleep.”

A few moments later, she heard Corazón’s breath even out and he started to snore softly. Prudence smiled slightly and went back to her book. She felt a slight eldritch tug in the back of her mind, almost as if Cthulhu was proud of her. This was extremely peculiar. Her patron had never reacted to her companions, except when He packed them all lunches, but she’d just assumed that was because they hadn’t hindered her duties as Cthulhu’s servant. Now she was feeling Him be pleased because she was caring for her friend.

It seems Corazón’s threat about becoming a warlock may be a bigger possibility than Prudence had initially thought.

“Damn you, pirate.” Prudence whispered, with none of the heart a usual damning would have.

~

When the other three members of the group returned from the nearby town, only Merilwen came into Corazón’s bedroom. She had a bottle of wine in one hand, and a new black tricorn hat with gold stitching around the edges in the other. She handed the wine to Prudence, who still had Corazón curled into her side, and stood at the foot of the bed, hat in hand.

“Dob’s making the soup. Egbert wanted to, but I was worried he’d make it too spicy for Corazón.” Merilwen was fussing the hat until Prudence raised an eyebrow and her hands stilled. “Is he going to be okay?”

Prudence folded over the corner of her book page and closed it, because, y’know, evil. “I’m pretty sure it’s just a routine Human cold. He should be basically fine in a few days.”

Merilwen nodded, finally putting the hat down at the foot of Corazón’s bed. “I’ll let you know when the soup’s done.”

She watched as the elf smiled and left the room. As Merilwen gently closed the door, Prudence briefly considered mentioning the Cthulhu tug from earlier, but Merilwen was out of the room before she could even shoot down the idea.

~

About an hour later, Prudence had managed to get Corazón out of his room and onto the deck of the Joyful Damnation, swaddled in his blankets. He sat next to Dob on the floor and leaned heavily into the half-orc’s side, while Merilwen put soup into bowls for them all. 

It was a lovely image, everyone sat around together, laughing and joking. Corazón felt a warmth in his chest, almost like a gentle glow, as he peered around at his friends, his cheek smushed against Dob’s arm. Egbert was excitedly yammering on about his latest explosive work, and Merilwen was listening with a frown. Corazón made a mental note to ask the paladin to move rooms away from the gunpowder storage again. Frisky and The Darkness were sat at Prudence’s feet while she ate. He wasn’t sure whether she was really listening to anything going on around her. Dob was humming his sister’s lullaby softly, and for the first time in a long time, Corazón felt at peace.


End file.
